


Meet Cute

by woolfverse



Series: Woolfverse [1]
Category: Temeraire - Novik
Genre: 1980s, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkwardness, Breakfast, Clubbing, Drugs, LGBTQ Character, M/M, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Subtext, did we have sex, meet cute, spittake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-13
Updated: 2010-02-13
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/woolfverse/pseuds/woolfverse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, When Laurence Met Tharkay...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet Cute

Will had decided the best course of action within one of these places was to stick, quiet, to the wall and observe, nursing his one drink. However, his plan was foiled for the first time when Jane spotted him through the crowd and forced him into a single, awkward dance from which he retreated immediately, to wait for another few songs (not that Will could truly tell them apart, one torrent of blaring robotic noise falling into another) to leave this horrible experiment behind.

The second time his plan was usurped was when a man, clearly on some kind of illegal substance, fell from the spasmodic mass of dancing bodies to Will's side. He said something, Will could not make it out through the noise, and the man's impediment, mumbling obviously with eyes closed, before attaching himself to Will's side without asking. Will was about to ask the man to leave off, but Jane had come back, sweating profusely but with obvious satisfaction.

"Oh, you found a friend. Great. Let's get out of here; I'm bushed."

Will was left with no choice but to frog-match the man on his arm out of the club, or be left behind, and Jane was the only one with a car between them (John was somewhere, Will was not sure, but he materialized in time to call shotgun).

And so, somehow, Will found himself taking the man all the way back to his apartment, and by the time he realized they were in Dartmouth, while this man was surely from anywhere else in Devon, Jane was gone, and his companion was still insensible.

"Put him on the sofa, I'm going to bed." John, for his part, seemed not to find it nearly as embarrassing as Will did, to gain some kind of straggler in this fashion, but did inform him in a tired tone that whatever he stole or broke, Will was honor-bound to pay for.

In the morning, Will woke to the smell of eggs and for a moment thought himself back in Wollaton Hall, where the servants would start cooking breakfast early. However, Will shook himself awake more, and found it smelled more burnt than would have ever been acceptable back at his parent's home, and he was still in his apartment besides.

In the kitchen, the man Will had (as Jane had put it) 'picked up' was making eggs and whistling in some unknown tune. He turned to give his good mornings to Will, and introduced himself with an incomprehensible first name.

"Tharkay," he said, catching Will's quickly-hidden look of confusion, "You can just call me Tharkay." And with a resigned sigh, went back to his eggs.

Feeling rather more comfortable, Will sat down to break his fast, taking out a glass of orange juice and sitting contentedly at the table.

"So," The man, Tharkay, spoke up again, after Will's end of the introductions were completed, and John had hurried in, introduced himself, and then left for his early class. Will took a drink as Tharkay looked up to ask, "Did we have sex?"

After Will had mopped up most of the orange juice he had spat over the table, Tharkay asked in the same dull tone, but with a queer look in his eyes, as if amused, "And, how do you like your eggs?"


End file.
